


Cartography

by stellarmeadow



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-05
Updated: 2011-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarmeadow/pseuds/stellarmeadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny likes his own maps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cartography

**Author's Note:**

> This is apparently the kind of thing that gets written when you literally scare yourself out of sleep in the middle of the night. Huge, massive thank you to imaginarycircus for far more help than so few words should have needed, and for helping me chase down the last paragraph.

Danny's mind is full of maps. He never really trusts GPS, prefers the maps he drafts in his own head, the ones of his turf, where he feels safe moving around, living his life, defending what's his. The maps of Jersey are etched into his brain, overlaid with changes, new names scribbled over old, maybe a little out of date these days, but never going away.

Oahu is a newer, less finished map with foreign terrain, drawn out like a cheesy postcard, complete with little cartoon palm trees, because they are the only things that seem appropriate. Locations of important people, new and old, are clearly marked, along with a slowly growing (faster than he would admit) list of restaurants, and streets with names that were unpronounceable a year ago, but now roll off his tongue without a second thought.

The newest map is small, by comparison, with fascinating hills and valleys, leading to colorful designs, and a slowly (but not slow enough) growing list of scars that somehow make the terrain more beautiful than before. He spends hours sometimes mapping this one, with hands and lips and tongue, coaxing out the story of each decoration, both intentional and not. The stories are told differently--sometimes with a laugh, sometimes with a poorly hidden relief that a scar beat death, and once with no more than a shuttered look and the word 'Classified.'

He likes his own maps, trusts them like no other, because of the time he's put into updating and redrafting them, defining every boundary around himself, making his own place in them. Any picture or drawing could show the name of a place, the surface of lines and hills and colors, but only careful study can brand a map _home_.


End file.
